At MGM, I always played the second feminine lead. I was never the star in films. I was the brassy, good-hearted showgirl. I never really had my big moment on the screen. Broadway gave me the stardom that my soul kind of yearned for.

[Fred Astaire] was a perfectionist. At rehearsal when you thought you`d got it perfect he would say, "Go on, Annie, just one more time!" What I wouldn`t give to do it just one more time.

[In 1979 interview] I have worked like a dog all my life, honey. Dancing, as Fred Astaire said, is next to ditch-digging. You sweat and you slave and the audience doesn`t think you have a brain in your head.